India's richest self-made woman, she founded Biocon in 1978 at the age of 25 as a garage startup to make industrial enzymes.

India's richest self-made woman, she founded Biocon in 1978 at the age of 25 as a garage startup to make industrial enzymes. It's now the country's largest listed biotech firm, with annual revenue of $572 million. It makes drugs for diabetes, cancer and autoimmune diseases. In 2010 Mazumdar-Shaw struck a $350 million deal with Pfizer to market Biocon's insulin globally. Now she's investing $160 million in a new research and manufacturing plant in Malaysia, her first outside India. But Biocon's shares have taken a hit recently, partly because of disappointing clinical trials of an oral insulin. She has funded the Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Center in Bangalore, where the poor are treated for free. An avid art collector.